Fika Nurul Ulya, Robertus Belarminus, Jakarta – The Denny JA Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) has revealed that the discourse on the election of regional heads (Pilkada) by Regional Representative Councils (DPRD) has received a negative response from the public, with as many as 76.3 percent expressing a negative sentiment on the idea.
"We see how the sentiment, indeed it turns out there are 76.3 percent of the public that tends to be negative in responding to the issue of regional heads being elected by the DPRD", said LSI researcher Adjie Al Farabi on the Denny JA LSI YouTube program on Wednesday January 15.
Meanwhile, the positive response from the public only reached 23.7 percent.
This survey was conducted by gathering content from conversations on digital and social media. It was noted that there were 1,898 conversations that discussed this discourse, with the majority occurring in online news media.
"So, a lot of conversations occurred in online media news, there were approximately 1,240 [conversations] related to this issue. So indeed the majority of them from the results of our research, conversations in digital media and social media, were indeed negative in responding to the issue that regional heads be chosen by the DPRD", said Farabi.
Furthermore, the survey also noted that the public believes that the election of regional heads should follow the new rules on presidential elections (Pilpres), namely that anyone can be nominated as a presidential or vice presidential candidate without being limited by the 20 percent presidential threshold.
On January 3 the Constitutional Court abolished the requirement under the Election Law that a political party or coalition of political parties had to have 20 percent of seats in the national House of Representatives (DPR) or have won 25 percent of the vote in the previous legislative elections in order to field a presidential candidate.
Farabi said that there were six reasons underlying this view. The public believes that the removal of the existing threshold in the election of regional heads would strengthen local democracy, reduce transactional politics and provide opportunities for new leaders.
"So those six reasons, include strengthening local democracy. Because every legitimate political party could nominate their own candidate regional head so indeed it creates a democracy that enables local aspirations, all citizens are represented in the candidates proposed by political parties", he added.
The LSI survey used computational content analysis to detect public topics and sentiments based on specific keywords. The data was collected from various social media platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and online media that include news, videos, blogs, webinars, discussion forums and broadcasts. The analysis was carried out between January 2-7.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Survei LSI Denny JA: Wacana Pemilihan Kepala Daerah Lewat DPRD Dapat 76,3 Persen Sentimen Negatif".]
